When Women Wrote Hollywood – Page 31 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

When Women Wrote Hollywood – 16 in a series – Elinor Glyn

To highlight the wonderful yet largely forgotten work of a collection of female screenwriters from the early years of Hollywood (and as a companion to the book, When Women Wrote Hollywood) we will be posting quick bits about the many films they wrote along with links to further information and clips from their works which are still accessible online. Take a few moments once or twice a week to become familiar with their names and their stories. I think you’ll be surprised at how much bold material these writers tackled at the birth of this new medium. — Rosanne Welch

When Women Wrote Hollywood – 16 in a series – Elinor Glyn

Elinor Glyn (née Sutherland; 17 October 1864 – 23 September 1943) was a British novelist and scriptwriter who specialised in romantic fiction that was considered scandalous for its time. She popularized the concept of It. Although her works are relatively tame by modern standards, she had tremendous influence on early 20th-century popular culture and perhaps on the careers of notable Hollywood stars such as Rudolph Valentino, Gloria Swanson and Clara Bow in particular.

Glyn pioneered risqué, and sometimes erotic, romantic fiction aimed at a female readership, a radical idea for its time—though her writing is not scandalous by modern standards. She coined the use of the word it to mean a human characteristic that “…draws all others with magnetic force. With ‘IT’ you win all men if you are a woman–and all women if you are a man. ‘IT’ can be a quality of the mind as well as a physical attraction.” [13] Her use of the word is often erroneously[citation needed]taken to be a euphemism for sexuality or sex appeal. — Wikipedia

Elinor Glyn (a/w/d/p/o), Beyond the Rocks (1922). PC

More about Elinor Glyn

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When Women Wrote Hollywood – 15 in a series – “The Ancient Mariner” (1925), Wr: Eve Unsell, Actor: Clara Bow, Dir: Henry Otto/Chester Bennett

When Women Wrote Hollywood – 15 in a series – “The Ancient ” (1925), Wr: Eve Unsell, Actor: Clara Bow, Dir: Henry Otto/Chester Bennett

The Ancient Mariner is a 1925 American fantasy-drama silent film based on the popular poem, The Rime of the Ancient by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, first published in 1798.[1] The film was directed by Henry Otto and Chester Bennett, and it was adapted for the screen by Eve Unsell. The film stars Clara Bow, Gladys Brockwell, Nigel De Brulier and was distributed by Fox Film Corporation. The film is presumed to be lost.[2][3]

The official plot synopsis, as provided by the Fox Film Corporation to the copyright registration office and then entered at the Library of Congress:[3][4]

Doris Matthews, a beautiful, innocent young girl, forsakes her sweetheart, Joel Barlowe, in favor of Victor Brant, a wealthy roué. On the night before they are to elope, an old sailor gives Brant a strange potion to drink and then unfolds before his eyes The Rime of the Ancient . Deeply touched by this story about the consequences of the wanton destruction of innocent beauty, Brant leaves without Doris. After some time, he returns and finds to his pained satisfaction that Doris, having overcome her infatuation for him, has again turned her tender attentions toward Joel.

— Fox Film Corporation — Wikipedia

More about The Ancient Mariner

More about Eve Unsell

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When Women Wrote Hollywood – 14 in a series – Eve Unsell

When Women Wrote Hollywood – 14 in a series – Eve Unsell

Eve Unsell (December 6, 1879[1] – July 6, 1937) was an American screenwriter. She wrote for 96 films between 1914 and 1933.[2] She was born in Chicago, Illinois, and died in Hollywood, California. Eve was an American scenarist who was known to also use the pseudonym Oliver W. Geoffreys as well as E.M. Unsell. Eve was married to a man named Lester Blankfield, but the year is disputed. Records list their marriage year as 1911, but it does not match up with other documentation. Eve Unsell was a professional in her career as a scenarist, overcoming many challenges along the way. Eve wrote for over 96 films in her lifetime, and edited over ten. Some of her most famous screen writes turned into productions include Shadows (1922), The Ancient Mariner (1925), The Plastic Age (1925), and The Spirit of Youth (1929). Although she was most famous for her work in scenario writing she can also be given credit as an adapter, company director, editor, play reader, screenwriter, theatre actress, and writer. She helped in the writing of many novels as long as editing many different pieces from literature to theatrical writing. — Wikipedia

More about Eve Unsell

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Thrills, Tears and the Real Gone Girls of Cinema via The New York Times

This is a great article supporting everything I have been trying to teach in my female-centric MFA History of Screenwriting course, including the idea that these female screenwriters and directors of Early Hollywood were left out of the history books as most of those were written by male historians.

I attempt to correct this in every class and with every research paper I assign – and with our new book of essays When Women Wrote Hollywood: Essays on Female Screenwriters in the Early Film Industry. The article even opens with a quote by Ida May Park taken from the Careers for Women book which essayist Jackie Perez quotes in her full piece on Ida May in our book.

The article concerns “Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers,” a wonderful series that opens Friday in New York City at BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) which is being presented with Kino Lorber and the Library of Congress.

“There are tear-splashed melodramas like Alice Guy Blaché’s “The Ocean Waif” (1916), but also slapstick comedies like Mabel Normand’s “Caught in a Cabaret,” starring Charlie Chaplin (1914), and Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley’s thriller “Suspense” (1913). The stories take on love and war as well as poverty (Ida May Park’s 1918 “Bread”); birth control (Weber’s 1916 “Where Are My Children?”); and prostitution (Dorothy Davenport and Walter Lang’s 1925 “The Red Kimona”). One must-see is Marion E. Wong’s “Curse of Quon Gwon: When the Far East Mingles With the West” (1916), thought to be the first feature by a Chinese-American filmmaker. (A chunk is missing but it’s still worth watching.)”

Even if you don’t live in New York to attend the series, you can read all about it – and these marvelous women and their movie-making careers – here:

Thrills, Tears and the Real Gone Girls of Cinema via The New York Times

In the Wild West days of early filmmaking—before Hollywood hardened into an assembly-line behemoth and boys’ club—talented women worked regularly as writers, producers, and directors, instrumental in shaping the very language of cinema as we know it. Nevertheless, figures like Alice Guy Blaché and Lois Weber are known today primarily by aficionados, and artists like Nell Shipman, Grace Cunard, and Marion E. Wong remain woefully obscure. Bringing together dozens of essential new restorations, this series spotlights the daring, innovative, and trailblazing work of the first female filmmakers and restores their centrality to the creation of cinema itself.

Read the entire article – Thrills, Tears and the Real Gone Girls of Cinema via The New York Times

And then order our book here…

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When Women Wrote Hollywood – 13 in a series – The Lying Truth & The Lost World, Wr: Marion Fairfax

When Women Wrote Hollywood – 13 in a series – The Lying Truth & The Lost World, Wr: Marion Fairfax

Marion Fairfax (October 24, 1875 – October 2, 1970) was an American screenwriter and playwright. Born as Marion Neiswanger in Richmond, Virginia, After she graduated from Chicago’s South Division High School, she enrolled in Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. She was married to actor Tully Marshallfor forty-three years. Fairfax worked as a company director, director, editor, editorial director, playwright, producer, screenwriter and theatre actress.

Fairfax first started her career as a stage actress, just like many other women did in that era. By 1901 she was appearing on Broadway and soon after that her own plays started appearing on Broadway. Before she went into pictures she was known for being one of the most distinguished stage authors in the United States, writing Broadway hits such as The Builders (1907), The Chaperon (1908), The Talker (1912), A Modern Girl (1914), In 1915 The Lasky Feature Play Company entered into a contract with Fairfax. This opportunity gave Fairfax the chance to work under William C. DeMille who is known as the author for many successful plays such as “The Warrens of Virginia” and “The Woman.” The success of Fairfax comes through wide knowledge of dramatic values, not only from an author’s perspective but also from that of the artist.[1] — Wikipedia

More about Marion Fairfax

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When Women Wrote Hollywood – 12 in a series – Marion Fairfax

When Women Wrote Hollywood – 12 in a series – Marion Fairfax

Marion Fairfax (October 24, 1875 – October 2, 1970) was an American screenwriter and playwright. Born as Marion Neiswanger in Richmond, Virginia, After she graduated from Chicago’s South Division High School, she enrolled in Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. She was married to actor Tully Marshallfor forty-three years. Fairfax worked as a company director, director, editor, editorial director, playwright, producer, screenwriter and theatre actress.

Fairfax first started her career as a stage actress, just like many other women did in that era. By 1901 she was appearing on Broadway and soon after that her own plays started appearing on Broadway. Before she went into pictures she was known for being one of the most distinguished stage authors in the United States, writing Broadway hits such as The Builders (1907), The Chaperon (1908), The Talker (1912), A Modern Girl (1914), In 1915 The Lasky Feature Play Company entered into a contract with Fairfax. This opportunity gave Fairfax the chance to work under William C. DeMille who is known as the author for many successful plays such as “The Warrens of Virginia” and “The Woman.” The success of Fairfax comes through wide knowledge of dramatic values, not only from an author’s perspective but also from that of the artist.[1] — Wikipedia

Lying truth

Lost world

More about Marion Fairfax

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When Women Wrote Hollywood – 11 in a series – The Shocking Miss Pilgrim (1947), Story: Frederica Sagor Maas

When Women Wrote Hollywood – 11 in a series – The Shocking Miss Pilgrim (1947), Story: Frederica Sagor Maas

The Shocking Miss Pilgrim is a 1947 American musical comedy film in Technicolor written and directed by George Seaton, and starring Betty Grable and Dick Haymes.

The screenplay, based on a story by Frederica Sagor Maas and Ernest Maas, focuses on a young typist who becomes involved in the Women’s Suffrage movement in 1874. The songs were composed by George and Ira Gershwin. Marilyn Monroe made her film debut as an uncredited voice as a telephone operator.

In 1941, husband-and-wife screenwriting team Ernest Maas and Frederica Sagor collaborated on Miss Pilgrim’s Progress, a story about a young woman who enters the business world by demonstrating the newly invented typewriter in the window of a Wall Street establishment. When she tries to fend off the unwanted advances of one of the firm’s clerks, her employer comes to her rescue but is killed when he falls down the stairs in the ensuing altercation. Abigail Pilgrim becomes the focus of a murder trial that attracts widespread coverage by the media and the attention of Susan B. Anthony when the concept of women working in offices comes under fire.[2] — Wikipedia

More about Frederica Sagor Maas

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When Women Wrote Hollywood – 10 in a series – Frederica Sagor Maas

When Women Wrote Hollywood – 10 in a series – Frederica Sagor Maas

Frederica Alexandrina Sagor Maas (/ˌfɹɛdəˈɹikə səˈgɔɹ mæs/; July 6, 1900 – January 5, 2012) was an American dramatist and playwright, screenwriter, memoirist, and author,[1] the youngest daughter of Russian immigrants. As an essayist, Maas was best known for a detailed, tell-all memoir of her time spent in early Hollywood.[2] She was one of the oldest surviving entertainers from the silent film era.[3]

Once in Hollywood, Maas negotiated a contract with Preferred Pictures to adapt Percy Marks’s novel The Plastic Age for film. Based on this, she was signed to a three-year contract with MGM for $350 per week, though in her words: “I had the peculiar feeling that wily Louis B. [Mayer] was less interested in my writing ability than in signing someone who had worked for Ben Schulberg and Al Lichtman.”[5] It was in this period that she wrote the screenplays for silent films Dance Madnessand The Waning Sex. — Wikipedia

More about Frederica Sagor Maas

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“When Women Wrote Hollywood” In The News: Uncovering the secret history of women in Hollywood, University of Kansas

What a great read!

Check out this profile of professor Laura Kirk, who contributed 2 chapters to When Women Wrote Hollywood, published by the University of Kansas where she teaches film acting for the Department of Film & Media Studies.

Her chapters involve Silent Era writer Eve Unsell and musical scenario writer Bella Spewack.

Read more about these – and all the great early female screenwriters in the book!

Rosanne Welch

When Women Wrote Hollywood In The News: Uncovering the secret history of women in Hollywood, University of Kansas

LAWRENCE — After working for many years as an actor and producer, Laura Kirk returned to her native Kansas in 2012 and joined the University of Kansas Department of Film & Media Studies as a lecturer, teaching film acting.

Now, in her first big work of academic scholarship, Kirk has contributed two chapters to “When Women Wrote Hollywood” (McFarland), a new book aimed at bringing the secret female history of Hollywood to light.

Kirk wrote about Kansan Eve Unsell, a screenwriter whose career spanned the silent and talkie era, and Bella Spewack, the journalist, author and screenwriter best known for “Kiss Me Kate.”

“When this industry started, women wrote 50 percent of the screenplays,” Kirk said. “And yet Eve Unsell was not in the index of any history book. Many of the women who have chapters in this book have not been written about in any real way.”

Unsell, for instance, got a two-line obituary in the Los Angeles Times when she died in 1937 at age 50. She was born in Chicago and grew up in Caldwell, a small Kansas town in Sumner County.

“She has 96 credits on IMDb,” the Internet Movie Database, Kirk said. “She was credited with training Alfred Hitchcock. She ran the Paramount studio in England. … I talk about how she was one of the first people to settle in Malibu when it was wild and natural and scenic.”

Read this entire article – Uncovering the secret history of women in Hollywood, University of Kansas

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More on When Women Wrote Hollywood – Adela Rogers St. Johns – Yesterday’s Children: A Cosmopolitan Book-Length Complete Novel

More on When Women Wrote Hollywood – Adela Rogers St. Johns – Yesterday’s Children: A Cosmopolitan Book-Length Complete Novel

Adela Rogers St. Johns was a prolific writer in many different formats besides screenwriting. This novel was published in the June 1939 issue of Cosmopolitan

More information on Adela Rogers St. Johns

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